ray keene: it shd be remembered that this game was part of a simultaneous display where alekhine scored 21 wins, 2 draws and one loss ( this game). in a simul the master sometimes falls prey to the most curious aberrations , usually through moving too quickly at a critical moment. here alekhine was of course winning easily until he overcomplicated. however, my point is that not too much importance shd be attached to a game from a simultaneous display! btw kasparov was and remains a big alekhine fan and wrote the intro to the batsford collection of alekhines games. also see "my great predecessors" for kasparovs more detailed views on alekhine.

1) dodging opponents-no champion willingly defends his title without substantial financial reward-euwe and bogolyubov cd both raise the funds for world championship matches-it seems,however, that capa could not. i believe that there was an absence of enthusiasm amongst potential backers for another protracted match along 1927 lines-with its high percentage of draws-furthermore-on reading the published correspondence the impression i gain is that alekhine was being fairly straightforward and it was capa who was ducking and weaving.
in tournaments alekhine certainly did not sidestep encounters with leading rivals and scored heavily against , for example, nimzowitsch, keres, flohr,
and some notable victories against reshevsky and fine.

2) concocting games-the games in question are undoubtedly very brilliant and may have been the result of analysis rather than competition-i believe that this is not clear -but who knows-they may have been off hand games --in any case the treasure house of chess is all the richer for these wild combinational constructions whether invented by alekhines fertile brain or played in a tournament-he certainly didnt fabricate results-in my opinion by analogy you might as well accuse problem composers of concocting their positions.

3) nazi associations-as far as i can tell alekhine was apolitical and merely wanted the opportunity to play chess-this apolitical nature went as far as being excessively naive in the case of his notorious analysis of aryan and jewish chess. he may have written this, and he may also have come under intolerable pressure from the nazis to write it, or it may have been based on beliefs he really held. the truth is hard to establish.as far as playing in nazi tournaments is concerned, many other great masters have played in events organised by regimes just as repulsive as that of
nazi germany-stalins russia springs to mind as an obvious example!

4)alcohol-i knew dr euwe ( and played him twice) and discussed alekhine with him-he said that alekhine was not drunk during the 1935 match, and , a fortiori, certainly not in 1937.

in my opinion alekhine was a great chess genius-a towering but tragic figure whose career was blighted by two world wars and a revolution-in spite of this he reached heights granted to few others.

Agent Bouncy: There was a concerted effort on the part of Soviet chess in the 1950s to rehabilitate Alekhin as, at heart, a misguided suffering expatriot who spent his troubled life dreaming of a return to his Soviet homeland. I recall reading several items, most notably by GM Kotov, with the implication that alcohol and sexual deviations were true the reasons Alekhin left Russia after the Revolution -- certainly any normal person would have enthusiastically joined in the work of the new Soviet nation! How can the loss of the world championship by the great Russian (at heart Soviet) to the Westerner Euwe be explained? And thus the myth of the drunken Alekhin is propagated.

ray keene: i can agree with most of that. there is of course evidence that alekhine drank, but no serious evidence that he was drunk during important games. an alekhine anecdote told to me by harry golombek ran as follows-golombek had won a particularly fine game in a chess olympiad and was showing it to an admiring audience when alekhine appeared, somewhat the worse the wear for drink -according to golombek. alekhine swiftly pointed out a tactical solution which golombek had overlooked and then wandered off-this led golombek to the witty conclusion that an inebriated alekhine could see more at the chess board than a sober golombek!

ray keene: i am pretty sure the game was golombek v horowitz warsaw olympiad 1935-and the position in question arose around move 24 when it seems very likely that golombek overlooked a far more powerful continuation of his attack -possibly with a Nxe6 sacrifice at some moment.

ray keene: again i tend to agree.holland is of course the exception-where euwes feats ensured that chess remained incredibly popular-i am sure the legacy of fabulous wijk aan zee tournaments is a testament to euwes achievements-out side of holland, of course, its another matter.

Nasgard: <ray keene> Ray with the greatest respect you’re comments about Alekhine’s alcoholism are in conflict with things you have said earlier. You say here that you knew Max Euwe and he assured you that Alekhine was sober during the 1935 match, and yet you said on you’re TV series Duels of the Mind (episode 7 Alekhine – Bogoljubov) and in you’re book Chess: An Illustrated History, something along the lines that Alekhine lost the title to Euwe in 1935, in a perpetual drunken stupor. As both the program and the book were out after Euwe’s death in 1981, you obviously must have had this conversation about Alekhine with him prior to making those statements. So what’s happened there?

Bishops Gambit: You’re not the first person to notice that – indeed it has been pointed out on Raymond’s Wiki page, with a link to this game on Chessgames supplied.

I wouldn’t expect and answer anytime soon, Raymond has a notoriously selective memory (not only to do with what you have pointed out, which has little consequence for him – but with things to do with money and copyrighted chess literature which he has republished under his own name). When people mention such things he will tend to claim ignorance or just completely ignore it...

Looking at Ray's profile he’s on every day, I don’t doubt he’s seen you’re comment - but there’s not a lot he can do to argue against it really – it was very articulately and factually put.

Nasgard: <Bishops Gambit> lol yes, we all know Raymond nicked a few pages from ‘Chess Monthly’ and used it in his book ‘The Big Book of Gambit’s’ or whatever it was called, and we’ve all heard the allegations David Levy made. There’s even photo’s on the net of a drunken Ray Keene - taken by GM Larry Christiansen – sleeping on a bed while he was supposed to be Larry’s second. But we’ve all made mistakes!

I just wanted to know why Ray had made those statements about Alekhine and completely changed his story here! Especially as Duels of the Mind is easy to get hold of on DVD now (he’s selling it!). As you say, I’m not the only one who’s noticed the discrepancies!

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